A complex renovation. Decisions in the right order.

An 83 m² apartment in an old building, services to replace and surprises inside the walls. The challenge: coordinate decisions so that electrical wiring, ventilation and finishes work together.

Renovated living room with a clad fireplace and opening into the dining room
La Prairie · Two years of work · Caen

My contribution. I surveyed the apartment, built the digital model, designed the services and carried out most of the renovation during evenings and weekends. I also made the four hinged doors forming the room divider.

Personal projects and volunteer contributions, with no commercial activity.

What sits above the ceiling shapes what you see.

A ventilation duct takes space. Its diameter and fixings determine the ceiling level. Choosing it after finishing would have required rework. The same logic applies to cables: the electrical distribution board was designed before opening routes in the walls.

Services firstCeiling afterwardsFinishes last
This diagram shows dependencies between interventions. Traces represent neither flow rates nor an installation to copy.

Before

Living room before renovation with its original fireplace and flooring
The starting point.

After

Renovated living room with a clad fireplace and opening into the dining room
The photographed result.

The fireplace wall before and after renovation. A visible transformation resulting from decisions prepared in the digital model.

What this project demonstrates

Model reality
Survey the walls, compare two alternatives and produce plans from one model.
Design a system
Define circuits, protection and purpose before cutting cable routes.
Lead under constraints
Sequence work packages and coordinate contractors on a project undertaken outside working hours.
Ventilation ducts and cables above the future ceiling
Before closing the ceiling, the services and their space requirements are visible. Ceiling installation was coordinated with their routes.

Anticipate dependencies

Two openings into the living area with a custom hinged-door partition
Four custom-made doors allow the living room to become a separate room or restore an open living area.

Design for multiple uses

What I took responsibility for

I surveyed the apartment, built the digital model, designed the services and carried out most of the renovation during evenings and weekends. I also made the four hinged doors forming the room divider.

Professional contributions

Five work packages were contracted out: windows and shutters, entrance door, corridor and toilet ceiling, mechanical ventilation, and heating maintenance and controls.

Concrete records, explicit limits

The photographs are visible here. The references below identify the personal records behind this account; these archives are not published in full.

  • Digital model dated 14 February 2020, updated in October 2021 and January 2023; electrical, heating and layout plans.
  • Distribution-board plan dated 22 October 2020: around thirty circuits. The project record reports that no circuit was added afterwards.
  • Photographs of services before concealment and a documentary record of 159 invoices. Records retained in the personal archives.

What this evidence does not establish

The model did not prevent discovering damp ingress, a corroded earth connection and a façade crack. These required action or documentation. Work took two years; a model reduces uncertainty without eliminating surprises.

The transferable skill: make dependencies visible, decide before implementation, then adapt the plan to what the real environment reveals.